About Me

I love being a career and personal coach, hosting Work with Marty Nemko on KALW-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate in San Francisco, and being a regular contributor to PsychologyToday.com.
My latest books, my 8th, 9th and 10th are are "The Best of Marty Nemko" (3rd ed), Modern Fables, and Careers for Dummies..
Some of my best recent work appears on this blog but my 3,000 previously published writings and the archive of my radio show are free on www.martynemko.com.
If you would rather email me than post your comments on this blog, my email address is mnemko@comcast.net.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

THE key to losing weight is STAYING conscious from the moment you're thinking about eating until the moment you've moved on to other tasks. During that time, KEEP thinking about how NOT eating is your reward: you'll look better, be healthier, have more energy, etc.

Your motivator can even be something one wouldn't expect. For example, a time-conscious person might eat out less by reminding himself, "It will take less time for me to grab something at home."

Remember too that it takes 20 minutes for your brain to recognize you're no longer hungry. So eat little and move on to some other task, rather than eating until you no longer feel hungry, let alone feel full.

I suggest you tape a sign "STAY Conscious!" on your refrigerator and another one on your dashboard, to remind you when you're out. Read it aloud often to lock the concept into the forefront of your mind.

And if, despite staying conscious, you choose to eat something calorific, it's probably okay. You've made a conscious choice that, at that moment, the pleasure was worth the calories.

The only way to "stay conscious" is to train your mind through meditation. It's impossible to stay conscious if your mind is like a kettle full of boiling water. What happens when you're in the grip of a strong craving for food? Unless you know how to be aware of your craving and impose a little self-discipline, you will succumb to your old habits.

Greg, I'm not convinced that meditation is "the only way" to stay conscious. Indeed, the pool of meditators I know are more scattered than the pool of non-meditators. I know there are co-varying factors, but certainly, it's dangerous to claim that meditation is the ONLY way to stay conscious. Beware of being a True Believing Zealot about anything.

It's a bit of a leap to go from being a meditator to a "True Believing Zealot." I think you should re-examine this belief. Do you even know what meditation is? Have you ever tried it? How large is the "pool" of meditators that you know? Meditation can be anything from watching your own breathing for a few moments to spending months in a retreat. Do you really think that over the millenia millions of monks and priests have willingly abandoned a conventional lifestyle to go meditate in a monastery because they were all scattered in the head? It's an incredibly powerful and effective set of mental training techniques. It has nothing to do with transcending reality. Don't look down your nose at meditation. Many people do it wrong or are led astray by false ideas of what it actually entails.

Greg, it is being a "True Believing Zealot" to assert that the only way to stay conscious is to meditate.

With regard to my own knowledge of it, 38 years ago, when I first came to California, I was proselytized to meditate (TM.) I did it for a few months and stopped when I saw no benefit. Since then, living in the Bay Area, I have seen countless meditators and non-meditators. And, as I wrote, while there, of course, are many co-varying factors, it seems to me that, on average, the meditators are flakier (seemingly less able to stay conscious) and less efficacious than the non-meditators. One observer's experience.

I do not meditate and I was able to kick a rather nasty caffeine habit, three double cappuchinos a day.

I did it basically by staying conscious, knowing there are SCORES of little decisions that go into buying a cup of coffee EACH ONE OF WHICH is a link in the decision chain that can be broken.

Going up to the counter, for example, and changing your mind and buying a bagel.

Going up to the counter, for example, and changing your mind and ordering a smaller size.

Going up to the counter, for example, buying the coffee and then throwing it out.

ONE OTHER THING THAT HELPED, other than being fully conscious was WEANING myself from it, like a mother weans a child from the tit, teasing, nursing, playing, back and forth rather than brute force punishment if I should deviate from the plan.

But Marty's two words here STAYING CONSCIOUS provides the key to quite a few of life's mysteries.